Word.ws English Dictionary

mysophilia

UK/ˌmaɪsəʊ̆ˈfɪlɪə/

mysophilia noun: a sexual dependency on something soiled or filthy, usually a kind of undergarment after use.

Noun

mysophilia (uncountable)

  1. A sexual dependency on something soiled or filthy, usually a kind of undergarment after use.
    • While here filthiness is seemingly a consequence of the fear of being soiled, it is in our cases a consciously wished for situation which might be similar to mysophilia within the psychosexual infantility.1963: National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis (U.S.), The Psychoanalytic Review, p272
    • Mysophilia, for example, can probably only be an erotic turn-on when it is possible for people to be clean, which is something that has been possible only in comparatively recent times.1988, Dennis M. Dailey, The Sexually Unusual: Guide to Understanding and Helping, page 17

Origin of mysophilia

From myso- + -philia.

Questions about mysophilia

What does mysophilia mean?
Mysophilia means a sexual dependency on something soiled or filthy, usually a kind of undergarment after use.
What part of speech is mysophilia?
Mysophilia is a noun.
How do you pronounce mysophilia?
Mysophilia is pronounced /ˌmaɪsəʊ̆ˈfɪlɪə/ (UK).

Words near mysophilia in the dictionary

  1. mysoped
  2. mysopedic
  3. mysopeds
  4. mysophile
  5. mysophiles
  6. mysophilia
  7. mysophobe
  8. mysophobes
  9. mysophobia
  10. mysophobias
  11. mysophobic

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: mysophilia (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “mysophilia.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/mysophilia. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.